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Step 6

The final touches are done with the palette knife. They can be just as important as the preceding steps, but they are somewhat easier to do and, for many people, a lot more fun. Thus far we have learned how to paint a competent landscape. Now, if you can manage to introduce an utterly original or utterly exquisite little highlight, your finished product will be all the more effective.

The most important thing to remember is that if you decide to include a little animal or a person, not much in the way of detail is required. To put in a human figure the merest of outlines will suffice. Simply sketch in three lines with your knife edge. One vertical will do for the body. Jutting out from this vertical, two more lines at opposing 30° angles can represent an arm and a leg. It’s just that easy to render an effective profile.

And yet these modest little highlights can make all the difference between a mediocre painting and a great one. It’s not what sort of highlight you include, but how and where you include it. Let us assume that there are trees on either side of your landscape. Both trees seem to dip in towards the middle of the canvas. If you’ve placed your person squarely between them, a most dramatic symmetry may be achieved, regardless of-how crudely drawn the figure.

We have already made the point that there is really no limit to how much depth a good landscape should contain. Look carefully around your painting. Does any stretch of sky or grass or water still seem dull? Is any of it sickeningly reminiscent of a kindergarteners finger painting? After all your work and enthusiasm is your masterpiece as flat as a pancake? In other words, does it stink? Don’t despair! There is always time for last-minute touch-ups. Perhaps all that dabbing we did with knife and toilet paper was ineffective. So then do some more! Lightly apply the tips of the toilet paper, just as before. A little yellow here, a pale red there and-poof!-our wan damsel’s a ravishing beauty!

These then are the steps by which any reasonably competent student can complete his or her own landscape. Before I recapitulate these steps in brief outline, I would like to make a few final points.

First, don’t be afraid if your wrists ache for some time afterwards. I’ve been painting for decades, and to this day I still cramp up. To ease the pain, pretend you’re a famous baseball player and your hamstring hurts you. In other words, take pride in your pain, as if it’s an outward sign of your professional accomplishment. Besides, haven’t I told you that the world expects you to suffer for your art, or else you won’t be regarded as much of an artist? Well, tell your friends and customers what hell it is just to pick up a palette knife after our muscles worked so hard painting.

Second, don’t forget to sign your work. But think twice about how you want your signature to look. Toulouse Lautrec used to draw his name as if it were a Japanese pictograph. In fact, I’d go so far as to say his signature vas a work of art in itself. But if you’re also interested in money-and Toulouse-Lautrec, for one, never had any-I suggest a bold hand that leaves no doubt as to who you are. V1y own signature usually covers a full eighth of the canvas on the lower right. My customers find K-A-T-Z spelled big and clear. Of course, if your name is longer, your signature will have to be smaller.

And third, after you’ve done a landscape or two, go to the museum and compare them to the masters. You’re liable to be surprised by how well you’ve done. No, you’re probably not as good as Monet, but you’ll see that you’re at least good enough to learn from what he’s done.

Notice Monet’s use of light, for example. See how the very substance of his massive solids seems about to evaporate in the atmosphere. Or study the great American landscapist George Inness. Concentrate on his greens. Stare at them as long as you can. The more those amazing shades he uses glue themselves to your consciousness, the more chance you’ll have of someday being able to recreate them yourself.

Then look at the way Claude Lorrain or the Dutch masters insert small people or animals. Often they’re incredibly inelegant, perhaps no better than the ones you’ve painted Yet see how those faint creatures can transform the vast terrain.

Every time you paint a picture you add something to the great tradition. And that tradition exists for you to learn from. It can have no greater or more important purpose f than you.

Finally, for your convenience, here are the six steps for painting a landscape:
1. Use the flat of your palette knife to coat the whole canvas with an over-all abstract schemer. Greens and blues should be prominent.
Using the tips of a piece of toilet paper dab up and down lightly to lend this abstract greater depth.

2. Use the flat of the palette knife to spread a horizontal schemer of black or dark paint across the middle of the canvas.
Soften the color of this schemer by flecking its edges with bright colors. Use the tip and edge of the palette knife.
Use the palette knife to add specks of yellow and ochre to the interior of the schemer.

3. Dip the tip of the palette knife in a dark color. Draw 4-or-5 inch squiggly verticals both below and above the horizontal. Maintain a loose grip as you draw these trees so that they will not appear rigid. Use only the tip of the palette knife throughout the rest of this third step. Break up the middle group with other colors or add warm color to right or left to create balance.

To draw branches, sketch in similar, equally squiggly lines at horizontals of about 30° from both the upper and lower verticals.
For shadows, draw in small dark lines at an angle of about 25° from the base of the trees. Draw them downwards from the trunks in a left-to-right (or right-to-left) direction.
Touch up the edges of the trunks with a light color.
For the roots draw in small squiggly lines just below the trunks. If your trees are especially dark, use a light tone for the roots.
Touch up the upper portions of the trunk and/or branches with a dark color. Use a thick blob of paint.

4. Using only the tips of a light wad of toilet paper, dipped lightly in white paint, swish it several times across the Ie water to create sparkling ripples. Use a loose wrist movement. If you can’t get the right effect this way, use the palette knife to crease the surface of the water with light blue paint to represent ripples.

5. Dip the tips of a strip or wad of toilet paper in bright colors. Press the paper gently against the treetops to create spangly clusters of leaflike circles and other shapes.

6. If you’d like, add a stick figure of a person or animal. Place it in as subtle or as dramatic a position as possible, vis-a-vis the trees or water.
If not, touch up with yellow or ochre wherever you need emphasis. Use more toilet paper to add light colors to any spots on the canvas that still seem flat. ;

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

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Step 5

For the fifth step-finishing off the treetops – fold the paper until you can hold it firmly. Again, dip just the tips of the paper in the paint on your palette. Choose light colors. Our most important consideration is that we want to create a representation of leaves, but don’t just rely on green. Light red will accomplish the same thing. We’ll really see what light can accomplish when you let it dance to its heart’s content. Light will illuminate and exalt even a portrait. How much more will it do when your subject is an organic miracle of nature that lives and dies with the sun! So put on l a little red with your green or pale blue. By the time you’re done, the tops of your trees can be crazy quilts of color, a lovely swirling hubbub of leaf and sunshine with tiny patches of sky peeking through. The novice just paints an object, dull and alone, but a good artist paints it in the full complexity of its relationship to the forces around it. He knows that when you look at a leaf, a good percentage of what you actually see are other elements that are forever playing upon it.

There you are in front of your easel with a wad of toilet paper dipped in light, spangly colors. Now press the paper gently against the canvas so that you cover the upper limbs of each tree. For all intents and purposes, the relatively large circles of thin bright paint that you create this way will complete the essential part of your landscape painting.

Using the same sort of easy wrist movement, drag another wad of toilet paper, also dipped in light colors, against your sky. The more interesting the color scheme, the more vibrant and convincing will be your background.

Again, I would advise that you spend a few moments I looking at the sky. Study its dynamism. The clouds pour I into the blue, while streaks of color from God-knows-where stretch across the horizon. So for goodness’ sake don’t hesitate to be creative with your color scheme. You’ll surprise yourself with just how new and delightful an unexpected burst of orange or pink can be. Naturally, not all your dabs of color will be equally pleasing. Often you’ll be disappointed by a blue that’s too pasty or a yellow that’s too deep. It’s a lot like cooking. Even the best chef puts in too much paprika once in a while. Fortunately you don’t have to eat your art, so the situation is considerably less critical.

To start the lesson follow the steps below:

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 1

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Step 4
If you look at what we have done so far, you’ll notice that the first three that an extremely talented child of about eleven might do while waiting for recess. You have the trees, the water, the sky, the reflections, the shadows. You can see where the land ends and the water begins. But you don’t have a painting yet. It’s just a picture.

The next step-using toilet paper-will make it a real painting. It’s my piece de resistance, the real trademark of my method of Instant Art. Just as Marconi had his wireless and John Wayne had his horse, I have toilet paper dipped in paint. Here’s how it works.

In the first step, we used toilet paper to add to an abstract schemer of paint. As I have said, toilet paper is not just a joke. Among other advantages it makes it a bit easier to keep a light touch, and that is very important for composing those subtle contrasts and vibrations that make a painting seem truly alive. Even some experienced artists using brushes have a tendency to belabor their canvases with too much paint. That’s less likely with something as thin and wispy as toilet paper, even if it’s folded over a few times.

At this point when we need to make the water sparkle, we must be able to drag a wad of toilet paper dipped in paint across the water to create the illusion of sprightly dancing ripples. The light that plays on water is an exquisite convolution of colors. It is very difficult to capture it with a brush or a palette knife. The tendency is to paint too thickly.

You can coat the thin edge of a palette knife with light blue or even white and crease the surface of the water for a ripply effect. Thin lines of creamy blue will serve to represent the ripples reflecting the sun.

But the far better way is with toilet paper. It will more easily capture the buoyancy of light playing upon water. Dip the edges of your toilet paper wad lightly in white paint and, with a loose wrist movement, swish the paper across the surface of the water just once and then step back and observe what you have done. If you’ve achieved what you ant, make another swipe below the first one. That’s about all you need to give the effect. Practice the wrist movement for it’s the secret to creating a light touch.

To start the lesson follow the steps below:

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 1

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Step 3

Dip the tip of your palette knife in black or a dark color, while allowing some of the paint to c08t the upper edges of the knife as well. Beginning from just about the center of your horizontal schemer draw 4- or S-inch verticals both above and below the median. The verticals on the top half 0 the canvas will be our trees. The lines below the horizontal will serve as the reflections of these trees in the water. If you want to add large branches do so with identical but smaller movements of the palette knife at pronounced horizontal angles, on the upper portion of the canvas.

You do not, of course, want to be drawing straight lines. Even pine trees have subtle contours for which such rigid lines would be inappropriate. How then should you draw these trees? Imagine the skinniest US” in the world. Duplicate that shape with your hand. Do it a few times without he knife just to get the feel of it. Then take your knife and draw the trees with just that motion.

A common worry among beginners is whether the reflections will accurately mirror the shapes of the trees. Again, hink of how it works in nature. The ripples of the water invariably fuzz the reflections. Or the sunlight dances cross the surface, bending and reshaping the trees in every possible configuration. What you see in the water is, at best, I ambiguous. The fact is, you thus have enormous freedom when painting the reflections. Just follow your common sense, but don’t worry if you .can’t render a precise mirror l image. If you have drawn large branches and now want their reflections as well, merely squiggle them in on the flower part of the canvas. Once again, rigorous precision is simply not necessary.

The next question is, how many trees should you draw? Basically, it doesn’t matter. We have already made the point that the landscape is an exciting genre simply because there are so many different routes you can follow. If your canvas is 18 inches across by 14 inches deep, a typical route would be three or four trees spaced at logical intervals. On the other hand, there are many effective paintings in which just one lone tree leans eerily off to the left or right.

There is, of course, the aesthetic issue of balance. This is almost complicated subject and we certainly don’t have the space here to explore it thoroughly. Suffice it to say that paintings should be balanced like anything else; an additional weight on the top or left should be compensated for by an analogous mass on the bottom or right. Sometime however, intentional imbalance can be very effective. A single tree all the way on the left may gain in power simply because it introduces a striking asymmetry into the proceedings.

The problem of balance can be approached in many ways, and it will be helpful to mention just one for your future experimentation. Through many centuries of trial and error, artists arrived at the conclusion that some colors Neigh more than others. The so-called “warm” colors, like red and orange, weigh more than the “cool” ones, like blue. (To remember which are which, just associate blue with an Eskimo’s lips and red with the color of a Sahara sun.) Now if you are only drawing one tree and sticking it off to the left, you can still make the composition symmetrical by adding a streak of red or dark yellow on the right. The weight of those extra-warm colors will serve to balance the tree at the opposite end.

At the ground level, streaks of red will emphasize the solidity of the land. Paint them in now. The more you learn about painting, the more you realize how complex are the problems of light. For example, after you have drawn the reflections of the trees, try drawing their shadows. A novice might guess that the problem here would be to accurately capture the actual shape of a shadow. Not at all! What you really need for a shadow is a small dark line at the base of a tree drawn in with a quick jab of the knife. Anything more would be intrusive, whereas that brief squiggle jutting out I from the trunk will tell the viewer all he needs to know.

The real problem is where to put the shadow. Its position must be determined by the direction of the light. Here light becomes a taskmaster. When we drew the reflections of the trees, we saw that the light on the water would render them phantasmagoric (optically indistinct) and thus give us more freedom in depicting them. In contrast, light dictates that a shadow must be here and not there, this way and not that way. In painting shadows we must obey its dictates. So what I suggest is that until you master the subtleties of light, it’s lest to assume that the sun is pouring in from the upper left comer of the canvas. That way, you will always be safe drawing the shadows in a left-to-right direction. I would recommend about a 25° angle from the base of the trunk downwards.

Next, touch up the tree trunks with a lighter color to once again create depth. Here, use the knife to trace just the edges of the trunks. Even a pure white will be effective for this. What emerges won’t be simple depth but an actual vibration, as if the dark comers of the bark are shimmering in the sun. Our trees will seem to jump alive as a result. Next time you go to a museum notice how many of the great landscapes on view feature lakes and haystacks and trees that seem wispy, almost evanescent. The masters knew best of all what light does to solid substances, how it makes even the heaviest forms shimmer in the breeze. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t achieve the same effect by imply applying subtle tinges of white to the edges of your trees.

As part of our third step, we can draw the roots of the trees directly below the trunks. Oddly enough, it really doesn’t matter what color you choose. In fact the darker the tree the more I’d recommend a lighter tone. Again our real purpose is to create form through contrast and depth. Never mind that most roots are actually heavy and brown. Unless you’re planning to draw the enormous vinelike roots of a fig tree, it’s really more important to avail yourself of yet another opportunity to intensify the overall effect of your canvas. Indeed, there are times when a white tone, much like the one with which we touched up the edges of the trees, will be most effective.

Being true to nature with your colors is not therefore all that important. Obviously you don’t want a pink sky and orange lagoon. But the real soul of art is form, and the same light that creates form also plays recklessly with color. Those roots, which we would normally expect to be brown, are subject to a thousand unpredictabilities of the sun. Any color might be reflecting upwards from the base of the trunk.

Everything you do should be with a thought towards form: light and color, composition and balance. Sculptors create form automatically by the simple nature of their materials. But in painting, there is no wood or marble looming towards the viewer, nothing extending from the surface, as in sculpture. You must rely totally on your own devices. When, for example, you draw the roots with your palette knife, be as squiggly as possible. The same narrow US” with which you drew the trees might work.

Remember that form has been the helpless plaything of nature for eons. It has been gnarled, torn and broken by the ravages of time, just like a checking account that is overdrawn. So pretend that your wrist is a ballet dancer. Let it shimmy gracefully at every step and thereby capture nature’s form in all its uneven grandeur.

Before moving on to the next step, we want to add some character to the ground and the trees. Put a glob of paint at the tip of your palette knife. A dark color might well be advisable here. Turn and twist the knife in the paint until it looks like a string bean hanging down. Then apply it to the tops of the trees. Whether you have painted branches or just a single trunk, these additions will give much greater body to the trees. You’ll really notice this in the next step, when we use toilet paper to create our leaves.

To start the lesson follow the steps below:

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 1

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 2

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 3

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 4

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 5

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 6

Step 2

It is in Step 2 that form begins to emerge out of the lovely chaos. And so easily too! You don’t need to build a Hoover Dam to harness the raging waves of color. All you need is one broad horizontal band across the center of the painting. True, a stranger looking at your work still won’t know wha1 it is, but you will. You’ll know that this horizontal band is quite simply the dividing line between land and water while above it is the sky. No, it’s not yet a picture, but it now has the essential outline.

Using the palette knife, simply drag some paint from one end of the canvas to the other. Make the band broad. You’re not yet a craftsman and, even if you were, the more space you create to work with the better. Besides, we’re going to I, want many wonderful things to grow on this land, so don’t box yourself into a corner.

Now all such strokes of paint I call “schemers,” which I think is more descriptive than most of the technical terms I you’ll find in textbooks. Critics, for example, prefer “impasto” to “schemer” but I really think impasto goes better with tomato sauce. A more amiable term also used by some writers is “painterly,” which refers to art that is full of I schemers and noticeably heavy brush strokes. Everything that you and I will be doing together is “painterly,” since we f are not aiming at a severely realistic technique. Obviously you cannot do a realistic painting in only ten minutes. But member that the reputation of “painterly” art-which, after all, was practiced by the likes of Van Gogh and Goyano less great, simply because it can’t pass for photography and doesn’t even try. So despise not the humble schmeer.

Over the years I’ve learned to create the horizontal band with a single right-to-left stroke of the palette knife. But it took me many years to develop this skill, and no apprentice can expect to do it as nimbly at first. It’s not like learning to drive a car. A modicum of practice behind the wheel can enable most learners to negotiate a relatively sharp turn. But there is an awkwardness in trying to paint that won’t go away as easily. I think it’s totally psychological. No matter how enthusiastic the neophyte, painting still has the mystique of an elitist art. This mystique discourages deftness, and otherwise sure-handed people often start to fumble.

You should therefore expect to lay on any number of hori-zontal strokes before you arrive at an adequate schemer. I would even urge as many as ten strokes. Again, you never .vant to slop on superfluous paint, but excessive thickness is not too high a price to pay in order to master the basic techniques. After a little practice, the hardest part actually You might want to ask yourself, does this look like earth? )oes it flow naturally, as all land does? Is its hue strong enough to suggest a rich soil, but subtle enough to accommodate the brighter and more intense colors we’ll be adding later on? Of course, only after a few failures will you really develop a feel for what sorts of schemers serve the final product and what sorts don’t.

Just as, in Step 1, we touched up the abstract coat to give it depth and character, we must now in Step 2 make our horizontal schemer a bit fancier before we move on to Step 3. The key here is to remember that our horizontal band will have a very dark look to it. In fact, too dark. Even if we plan to use a fairly bright green the sheer massiveness of the horizontal will tend to weigh down the canvas. And we: don’t want our trees and leaves overshadowed by a ponderous layer of somber paint pulling at their base.

It is therefore important to add touches of lively color. Using the palette knife try little specks of yellow at various places along the bottom and top edges of the band. Not only will this lighten the effect, but it will further delineate any river bank. Yellow, perhaps a dark yellow, will serve to smooth this transition. You don’t want dark earth starkly juxtaposed against blue water. Nature is most often gradual, especially when it mixes its colors. We seldom find a purely green leaf or a purely brown bark. Things flow into each other; there are no precipices of green or red or blue sticking out like rock crystals against a landscape. So by flecking your schemer with yellow, not only do you help it fit in better with the rest of your canvas, but you create more realistic borders as well.

New artists should bear something in mind. There are moments when nature does actually present stark delineations-when the reeds do stand out like sculpted forms of green or brown against the sharp blue of the water. But just I because nature does it, that doesn’t mean that you should! The relationship between art and nature is very mysterious. A work that shows nature exactly as it is sometimes is the least realistic, most stilted and most artificial of paintings. The illusions of art are so enigmatic that, paradoxically, it is often the broadest, most “painterly” of strokes that seems most natural.

The point is, paint nature, not as it always is, but as people expect to see it. And that means, paint subtle colors that spill gradually into each other. I have mentioned yellow because yellow is an incredibly useful color. It can work well with just about anything else in the spectrum and is eminently functional for transitions, for softening a heavy tint, and for suggesting omnipresent sunlight.

Another color comparable to yellow both in appearance and usefulness is ochre. Ochre is wonderful because it suggest marriage of sun and soil; its brownish hue implies the solidity of earth while its golden tone tells us that this earth has also been subject to a sprightly dance of light. Again, have fun; there’s not much harm that you can do to your schemer with these small, vibrant points of yellow and ochre. Indeed, it was my practiced use of these colors that led the great Hyman Margolis to compare many of my landscapes to Monet’s Water Lilies.

Finally, use ochre not just at the borders, but within the Jody of your schemer as well. Variations in color, especially the application of lighter colors, will create the illusion of depth in your schemer just as the tips of the toilet paper add depth to your initial abstract coat. It is not, however, necessary to use toilet paper for any task in Step 2, although it will help.

Already we have the outline of a landscape. We have sky, we have water, we have land. And just as important, we have used lighter colors to create an illusion of depth throughout Now comes the time to draw the actual face of nature.

To start the lesson follow the steps below:

Read Introduction on Landscape Oil Paintings

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 1

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 2

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 3

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 4

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 5

Follow Oil Painting Lesson Step 6

Step 1

The first step is background. Using your palette knife, coat the canvas with a fairly uniform layer of paint. Since this is a landscape you must apply color to this abstract layer, for it will eventually have to represent sky and water. So get in some healthy blues and greens, but also be creative and have fun. Don’t be afraid to include some brown, while lighter colors like yellow can also be used. Always remember, though, that the green and blue ought to be prominent.

An easy-flowing wrist motion accomplishes this background. Naturally, you will be using the flat side of the knife. When you start your first painting, spend some extra time applying the basic colors. While it is never a good idea to thicken a canvas with disgusting mounds of superfluous paint, for your first time, it can’t really hurt to get the feel of the knife as much as possible.

Already, in this rather uncomplicated first step, we have need of the toilet paper. As you know, no background is really flat. The sky is alive with so many shades of color that some are projecting towards us while others seem shy and hang back. Before you ever start painting you must memorize a basic principle: light creates depth and form. A sky crayoned by a child doesn’t really look like a sky. It is too uniform. Nothing is acting upon it, no sun is forcing one patch patch to appear distant and hazy, while causing other spots to look as if they’re bulging down on us.

To create depth in your background use the tips of a piece of toilet paper and gently dab the surface. Small dots create what is called a pointillist effect. Already you will note how I those dots lend dynamism to the surface, as if pieces of color I are dancing in various directions.

Though toilet paper is a very light material, it can still slop up a canvas if used carelessly. I therefore recommend that you learn how to hold a piece of toilet paper so that you can easily manipulate its tips. It is never really necessary to tear off more than two or three sheets at a time.

To further understand what we have just done, think of the foundation of a house. It is a beginning, a mass of inchoate material. You can’t really know what it will be until you happen to see it situated on a construction lot or between two other completed houses. It is an abstraction. Abstraction always precedes realism. The windows, the lintel, the chimney will later identify it. So too with skies and rivers: They proceed out of a swirl of anonymous color. The next time you see an abstract painting by a true master like Pollack or Kandinsky, don’t dismiss it out of hand. Think of it as matter in the process of becoming a recognizable something, and remember that you yourself have followed the same procedure as part of a more conventional endeavor.